


Once the Weapon of a Jedi

by The_Client



Series: Scenes from an Alternate Episode IX (writing order) [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Kyber Crystals, Lightsabers, Rey is Not a Palpatine, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-19
Updated: 2020-01-19
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:22:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22324015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Client/pseuds/The_Client
Summary: Rey builds something new from the remains of Anakin Skywalker's lightsaber. All works in this series can be read independently, or in any order.***"When she’d first felt this on Takodana, accompanied by those terrifying visions, it had set her to fleeing as if for her life. During her subsequent struggles with Skywalker and with him she’d been distracted by her grand hopes, investing the saber with a significance that allowed her to ignore the accompanying discomfort. But now the buzz of the crystal was magnified, undeniable.Maybe it hurt it, being broken.And though she'd stayed up for hours, night after night, gazing at her array of parts, she'd been unable to bring herself to assemble them."
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Series: Scenes from an Alternate Episode IX (writing order) [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1600099
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	Once the Weapon of a Jedi

When Ajan Kloss base was established, Rey – with General Organa's support – had commandeered a small, ramshackle structure for the sacred Jedi texts. They covered the surface of the makeshift table she'd built, interspersed with the printed translations the General's protocol droid had made. (She'd felt guilty about monopolizing so much of C-3PO's time, until she'd realized that everyone else on the base was only too glad to have him out of their hair.)

While the translation was underway, she'd studied the diagrams found in several of the books: single-bladed swords, double-bladed staves, straight hilts and curved hilts and vented ones, spare and ornate. She'd scavenged the base for loose blaster parts, engine parts, droid parts; had brainstormed ways to machine others with the base's limited resources. She’d painstakingly disassembled the shrapnel of Anakin Skywalker's lightsaber, freeing two asymmetric lumps of crystal that mated perfectly along their jagged edges.

But the crystals _hummed_ in her hand, sending vibrations through her clenched teeth like a power tool used incorrectly, about to turn on its wielder. When she held them she felt as if she was naked … not in front of a stranger, exactly. In front of some heartless machine, perhaps, except she generally experienced machines as fascinating and potentially helpful. She wanted to cast the crystals aside in aversion, as if she'd reached for a ration bar without looking and found her palm full of a giant, hairy insect instead.

When she’d first felt this on Takodana, accompanied by those terrifying visions, it had set her to fleeing as if for her life. During her subsequent struggles with Skywalker and with _him_ she’d been distracted by her grand hopes, investing the saber with a significance that allowed her to ignore the accompanying discomfort. But now the buzz of the crystal was magnified, undeniable. _Maybe it hurt it, being broken._

And though she'd stayed up for hours, night after night, gazing at her array of parts, she'd been unable to bring herself to assemble them.

She'd told herself she needed all the theory first, read the translations from beginning to end, alternately mystified and fascinated and repelled. The technician in her picked apart the exotically named forms of lightsaber combat, sifting out the tricks and innovations most likely to serve her in a practical fight. The philosophical discussions of the Force were engrossing, but in the manner of a culture-and-etiquette guide for a planet she was unlikely to ever visit: when she tried to review them during her work shifts, her hands deep in the solidity of engine parts or firm on the yoke of a reconnaissance speeder, the abstractions felt so distant and irrelevant. And no matter how many times she read the rationales for the destruction of families, the celibacy, the severing of all attachments, she could not convince herself to be anything but appalled.

Surely she would feel differently, were she worthy of the Jedi legacy?

She'd shown Finn the pictures late one night, when – worried that she had not returned to barracks – he'd brought her a mug of some theoretically soothing tea spiked with pilots' hooch. His eyes had alighted at the drawing of the double-bladed saber-staff. “Why don't you just make that one already? You said one crystal per blade. I see two crystals. And you love whacking things with your big stick, right?”

He'd been teasing, playing dumb to make her smile. It had worked.

“You're supposed to find a whole naturally occurring crystal. I don't know if these broken pieces will even work.” Nor did she know if her crude rock-lifting skills were up to the delicate task of telekinetic machine-assembly; or whether she had missed some vital instruction that would keep the whole thing from exploding in her hand the first time she switched it on.

These were reasons. But not _the_ reason.

If the news is true, though – _the ancient evil returned_ – there can be no more excuses, no more dawdling. She’s the closest thing to a Jedi alive, the only being with even the faintest theoretical hope of facing down such a foe. Inadequate as she may be, it is her absolute responsibility to try.

She constructs the shell of a double-bladed saber-staff hilt, leaving out the crystals and their supporting apparatus. She steps outside, intending to test the feel of the grip with some of her old street-combat moves. But she finds herself sinking into the memory of her second, and so far last, real saber-combat. The way the galaxy had narrowed to scarlet and flame reflected in mirror-polished black; to the dance of her muscles and the effortless awareness of her opponents’ every intention. And to –

_No._ She can’t let herself think of that. Of _him._

But she does.

She returns to the shed and disassembles the staff-hilt.

It takes hours of experimentation, working from hints of inspiration that flash teasingly in her mind's eye, then leave her to the tedious work of assembling them into a functional whole. Her construction has been put together and taken apart a dozen times over, incorporating new features belatedly discovered to be essential, by the time she floats the crystals into their housing. They sing atonally in her telekinetic grip, leaving her nauseous. Yet they do not resist her, and ultimately settle, quiescent as they ever are, into their places.

It's nearly daylight when she carries her creation outside.

The hilt is a bit longer than the grip of her trusty staff, varied in thickness along its length so that she can here grip it comfortably with two hands, there with one. She spins it in her hands, striking and parrying at imaginary opponents, finding the balance pleasing – but ruefully aware that she's still procrastinating. Finally, she holds it level at arms' length, closes her eyes, and ever-so-carefully nudges the twinned controls.

Two blades spring out, staff-wise in either direction from the hilt, extending longer and shorter as she slides the switches along their housings. Not blue, she's startled to discover, but bright white.

Placing one hand to each side of the hilt's center, she reaches with the Force to depress the catches at the mid-point. With the pleasing click of well-calibrated machinery, the hilt springs into two, leaving her with a blade in each hand, like the linked vibro-arbir blades the Praetorian had wielded in that red, red room. One hilt is longer and heavier than the other, a cudgel in her hand, near as big as her forearm. Smoothly she rejoins them to form the staff.

Too exhausted to go to the barracks, she drops her head on the table among the books and sleeps. When she wakes she hides her creation in her gear, then grabs a quick meal at the base, spreading the word that she intends to train all day in the jungle and _suggesting_ that she would prefer not to be disturbed. Then she hikes until she finds a comfortably distant spot, drops into meditation position with her conjoined sabers in her lap.

She imagines her denial, her refusal, as paper walls dividing the house of her mind – flimsy, easily lifted aside. Beyond them lies the bond, real as it ever was. She is still angry with him, but the anger is a rope by which she can haul herself to him.

She doesn’t know if it’s an enemy or an ally she seeks, but she's going to find out. There can be no more excuses, no more delay.


End file.
